When I look at the women, it's from a male gaze of being fascinated, because beyond my mother, I've been around notorious women all of my life, and then, secondly, when I look at women and try and create fictional stories around them.

I'll always remember Jean Paul Gaultier, who did a project based on Madonnas, remarking on the images, "Yours are much better." Gaultier is really smart, so it's good getting a compliment from him!

I think the power of image is in mystery - I endlessly create mysteries, by way of this dystopian message, to initiate intrigue.

I'm always working in this universe - whether picturing hamburger joints, Virgin Marys, domestic scenes - using these "vacant-faced" women as a medium to question universal truths.

I did a series of dark, desperate women shoots, my exhibitions weren't being well received, and then 9/11 happened, and I said to myself, "Have I gone too far?" Now I look back and realize going out on a complete limb at the time was right - well, people seem to be really responding to my message now, anyhow!

Having a book is actually like a great master - helping to build a universe and unify work - especially in my pictures where there is such a strong signature, yet with a set of rigorous rules to it.

I'm inspired heavily by film influences - David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock, Pedro Almodóvar, and what I see in the cinema - so there is a linking, an interweaving between memory, cinema and contemporary life, which the women in my pictures encapsulate.